New Ways of Being Church

Conversations on renewal and transformation in mainline congregations

March 15-18, 2009

Yes, there are signs of hope for the Church in the post-modern and post-Christian era! In 2009, Louisville Seminary welcomes a celebrated trio of church leaders/scholars who are spreading the news that the Church of the 21st Century can and does re-think, re-tradition, and re-invent itself.

• Diana Butler Bass, historian and author of the popular book Christianity for the Rest of Us, brings with her inspirational presentation solid research showing that mainline congregations are thriving as communities that practice ancient Christian traditions.
• Marcus Borg, a prominent New Testament scholar, speaks for many who seek a fresh, credible, and progressive understanding of Jesus Christ for this age. His forthcoming book is simply titled Jesus.
• Brian McLaren is a pastor and author who best represents the “Emerging Church” from an evangelical perspective, but his presentations and books, including A Generous Orthodoxy and Everything Must Change, elude simple labels.
• With closing worship led by LPTS Alum Preacher Mike Pentecost (MDiv ‘98), pastor of Brentwood Presbyterian Church in Brentwood, Tenn.

For more information about this event, contact David Sawyer, Director of Lifelong Learning and Advanced Degrees, dsawyer@lpts.edu, or Leah Bradley, Director of Alum & Church Relations, lbradley@lpts.edu, 1-800/264-1839.

First Place - Submission #14 by Jena Ashton (178 votes)
Second Place - Submission #7 by Margot Starbuck (144 votes)
Third Place - Submission #13 by Dannah Walter (42 votes)
Fourth Place - Submission #15 by Ryan Pappan (32 votes)
Fifth Place - Submission #2 by Stephanie Nelson (17 votes)

Each of these winners will get to choose one of the five prize packages. Congratulations to the winners who were picked by the presbymergent community. If you are one of the winners, please email presbymergent here about how to claim your prize package.

So clearly this community of friends is starting to gather more inertia. One thing I’ve been wondering for some time is whether we needed to design a logo for presbymergent. Now that we’re planning on having a booth at General Assembly in June, and our name has started to show up on a few posters for events as a co-sponsoring group, I think it might be helpful for us to get a logo designed for presbymergent.

I made the graphic on the right one night just to have something. However, it’s not really a presbymergent logo - just a few little “badges” put together.

So I’d like to suggest we collaborate on getting a logo design put together. Obviously, we don’t have any funds, unless we wanted to raise some money to hire a professional to design the logo. Otherwise, we can seek out people who may be willing to donate their services, or there may be some of you out there who want to take a stab at designing a logo.

I’m also wondering how people would like to go about the process. Should we find one person to work on the logo? Should we have a variety of people design a logo and then we’ll all vote? I’m open to any ideas. I have a few ideas of people we can seek out, some of which may be willing to do it for free. And I am also willing to work on some ideas.

What does everyone think?

• The Open Door, an emerging Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh pastored by BJ Woodworth, received $8,000 to help them assess the needs within their lower-income and culturally diverse neighborhoods; conduct surveys and meet neighbors in hopes to learn their stories; research, train and develop strategies for becoming the multicultural church they hope to be; hire an intern (for two consecutive years) to work with their church in building bridges with minority populations in their urban neighborhood and developing indigenous leaders from the neighborhood.
• The Living Room, an emerging Presbyterian chuch in the Westside neighborhood of Atlanta, GA, pastored by Tom Livengood, received $5,000 to help them more fully develop their website/virtual community for their New Church Development. The Living Room will be working with BreenSmith Advertising, a Westside advertising firm, to develop their identity and look.

We are excited for BJ and Tom and their respective communities - we look forward to seeing how this financial assistance helps them to bring about the Gospel and the Kingdom in their midst. It’s also encouraging to see the denomination help out in this way. Congratulations!

• Blogging as a Spiritual Discipline and The Case for Facebook by Bruce Reyes-Chow
• Blogging 101 by Adam Walker Cleaveland
• Your Own Personal Gutenberg by Neal Locke and Shawn Coons
• An article by Leslie Scanlon about the use blogs in church which features BJ Woodworth of The Open Door
• The paper copy also has an article about the recent event in Pittsburgh by myself which may soon be online as well.

Enjoy!

For more on Troy’s news - here is his blog, the online article, and a photo/audio show which focuses on Troy at 11:54.

For more on Bruce’s news - here is his blog, and the announcement of his moderator adventure, part 1 & part 2.

Influential? Not influential? It’s difficult to know. As with Bruce and Troy, my prayer also is that, most of all, we presbymergents are faithful to Christ.

I would like to extend an invitation to all Presbymergent community for an opportunity to spend two days with Phyllis Tickle at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, NY.

About five years ago five of us from our church went to a conference with Phyllis Tickle at Montreat Retreat Center. This gathering inspired and challenged us to be a new church in this time and place. So we sold our building, moved into a rental facility and overcame major institutional obstacles with God’s amazing leadership in our midst. We are truly “emerging” in ways which we have not imagined, or even dared to imagine. In the midst of all our endevaors, Phyllis Tickle has become a trusted sage and a prayer partner.

She will be with us on December 1 and 2, 2007. If you need hospitality, please e-mail me and we’ll make sure there is “room at the inn.” For more information about this event please visit my blog: http://zoelife-with-jesus.blogspot.com [I am still new at this...] There will be a Advent High Tea in her honor on December 2 after 11am worship. [Hospitality Teas is one of our key ministries.]

I hope and pray many of you will be able to join our community in December.

Grace and peace to all of you,

Rev. Banu Moore, OblSB
Co-pastor, Westminster Presbyterian Church
Lakewood, NY

The Editors of Presbymergent are Jim Bonewald, Jan Edmiston, Neal Locke, Karen Sloan, Seth Thomas, Adam Walker Cleaveland & Brian Wallace. You can read their bios and learn more about the site at the About page. We have also linked to various Articles and Book Recommendations that you may find helpful as you join this conversation.

If you’re new to the conversation, please leave us a comment or perhaps you’d like to Register and Join Presbymergent and begin submitting content. Welcome to Presbymergent.